


Packing Up, Moving Forward

by witchesdiner



Series: Backward, Forward [1]
Category: Gravity Falls, ParaNorman (2012)
Genre: College AU, Fluff, Internet Friends AU, Trans Dipper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2015-09-04
Packaged: 2018-04-19 00:43:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4726394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchesdiner/pseuds/witchesdiner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dipper and Norman are heading off to college! After years of talking to each other online, they'll finally be living in the same city. </p><p>Is friendship different when you can literally see eye-to-eye? What if all the metaphorical seeing eye-to-eye stuff goes away? </p><p>Alternative title: Dipper is worried a lot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Mabel was lying outside of his door, drumming on her stomach fat and singing loudly, “Oh, I’m singing this song because I like to sing- not because it’s a Dipper-Annoying-Thing. Not at all, not at aaaaaaaaaaall.”

“Okay, then,” Dipper sighed, gently closing the door on Mabel and her Mabel-antics and turning to his bedroom.

It was difficult to come up with an accurate hyperbolic statement to describe the state of disarray his living space was in. To call it a battlefield was unfair. It wasn’t as if there were two sides to it; it was just him and his mess as far as the eye could see and they were in it together. It was more like the mess they had come back to the night gravity had reversed itself. Years later and that whole business was still stuck in his head. He still remembers that it took Mabel a whole week to start fixing her side of the room.

“Dipper, are you still there?” Norman’s voice buzzed from the speakers on his desk.

“Oh, uh, yeah! Just… overwhelmed I guess.” He turned to the laptop connected to the speakers and smiled at Norman.

“Uugh, right? What am I supposed to pack?”

“Well, I sent you the, uh, the checklist. It’s just a modified version of the one on the school website but–”

“It was an existential question, Dipper.”

“Don’t you mean hypothetical?”

“No, I don’t,” Norman answered, sticking his tongue out. He leaned forward until his mouth filled the entire screen and made a series of gurgling sounds.

“That’s gross, man,” Dipper laughed, scratching a mosquito bite on his elbow. “Oh my goossh, stop. Don’t you know anything about comedic timing– this joke is over!”

“Well, maybe you just have no taste in comedy,” Norman sniffed, moving away from the camera. “Maybe you’re boring.”

“Wh-whoa! What?! Me, boring? No way! Norman, Norman, shut up, stop laughing. Norman, I’m the most interesting man alive. I hunt monsters everyday.”

“Oh, are we counting inner demons and mean customers as monsters now, Dip-sticks?”

“We…. are,” Dipper admitted, nose crinkling. “But, we’re gonna do amazing stuff at school!”

“I still can’t believe we’ll be in the same city,” Norman grinned, wiggling around in his computer chair. “A new era arrives! Boston is ours, Dipper!”

“Y-yeah!” Dipper could feel his face getting hot. _Great, awesome, fantastic_. Now he would be thinking about that instead of being normal. Weird, nervous Dipper Pines blushing for no reason.

“I… uh… I guess we should get packing?” Norman offered up awkwardly.

“Um… Yeah. Yeah.” Dipper stood up and groaned loudly. “I hate this part.”

“Oh, I-I don’t know… I kinda like… folding clothes and stuff.”

“What, really?” He scratched the back of his neck and stared at the mound of clothes on his bed.

“Um, yes?”

“Weird.” Dipper stretched, twisting this way and that to get rid of the tension in his back.

“Dipper, we don’t call people the W-word. I’ve been bullied my entire life and I’m a fragile soul. You-You’ve hurt me.”

“Yeah, okay.” Dipper had been going for aloof sarcasm but the nervous giggling at the end ruined it.

“…Anyway,” Norman said, probably rolling his eyes, “We’re starting now. Synchronize playlists in… 3… 2…”

“W-wait for me!”

* * *

“Dipper! Diiiiiipp-puh-puh-puh-Dop-A-Dip-Dam-Rams! Pay attention to me!” Mabel nearly ripped the door off the hinges as she entered.

“Mabel, not now,” Dipper gritted, feeling himself blush as he shoved his socks-binder-underwear ball into the side pocket of his suitcase. “I’m on Matt-Chat with Norman.”

“Oh my gosh. Hi! Norman!” Mabel danced up to the laptop.

Dipper looked over to see that Norman wasn’t even facing the screen and sighed.

“Hey, Mabel, what’s up?” Norman called from on top of his bed. He was carefully removing a poster from his vast collection.

“Well, I started up a new project.”

“Oh, cool! Tell me about it.”

“Okay, so I’m painting a series of deserts while eating jalapenos. It’s a statement about… hotness. Gonna draw some shirtless merpeople next to cool down and– OH my god,” Mabel cut off mid speech, leaning her head into the laptop speakers, “You guys have synchronized playlists?!”

“Hey, what’s wrong with that?” Dipper argued. He burst out laughing as he heard Norman start to make a similar protest.

“Know what they say about great minds,” Dipper laughed.

“They make nerd playlists together?”

“That’s not it at all, Mabel.”

“Alright, alright, don’t get all… Up. Tight.” She squawked and laughed, spinning around until she keeled over on Dipper’s carpet.

“Was that a pun or something?”

“Nah!” Mabel punched the air, “I’m just feeling happy.”

“You excited for your… Fancy New York art school life, Mabe?” Dipper asked, reaching down to pick up a couple loose pens. Something shifted in his chest and he was going to do his best to ignore it.

“Oh my gosh, am I,” Mabel said, flailing her hands and feet. She let her limbs drop to the floor a moment later. “I’m gonna miss you a bunch, nerdo-bro.”

“Y-yeah… me too, Mabel. But it’s… it’s okay. You’re gonna make lots of weird friends that like… I don’t know paint their clothes and… weird… art stuff like that…”

“And you’re gonna start a cult with Norman.”

“I-I’m sorry if I’m ruining a moment or something but I never agreed to that!” Norman said.

“There just wasn’t a good time to bring it up,” Dipper shrugged.

“What?!”

“You said you wanted an exciting freshman year of college. Can’t think of anything better than a good, old cult.”

“Dipper, I-I’m not joining your weird cult.”

“Well, we have ZombieFlicks and some pretty good snacks my dad bought soooooo…”

“Fine, I guess I’m in.”

“Good.”

“I’m in the cult, too, right? Like even if it’s just Matt-Chat?”

“Um, duh, Mabel?” Dipper smiled at her as she grabbed the air, a universal sign  for him to pick her up.

She tackled him in a hug before she was even fully up. He laughed, hugging her back.

“Well, I’ll let you dorks be dorks,” Mabel said after a while, pulling away from him.

* * *

“So, Dipper, do you think we’re ready for college?” Norman asked, some time later. He was on his bed, swaddled in his blanket.

“I-I hope so?” he replied, staring at his own face in the bottom corner of the screen. He didn’t look ready. His face looked like it was floating, in the dark of his room. He blinked back at himself, wide-eyed.

“Me too.”

Dipper forced himself to look back at Norman. He didn’t look too sure of himself either. Well, they were both awkward. And they would be awkward together.

“N-Norm, I… I think we can do it,” Dipper said, trying to meet Norman’s eyes and send him some really shaky, mostly nervous rays of confident energy.

“Maybe.”

“Like, totally. One-hundred percent. We’re gonna have a great time. We’re hitting that cemetery you told me about on the first weekend, okay?”

“Fine, but I don’t know it that well…” Norman pushed his fingertips together, his eyes hollow and dark in the dim lighting.

“So?” If Dipper had learned anything from living with Mabel, it was never to let new things get you down for long.  “We’ll figure it out together then.”

Norman perked up and smiled at him.

“Then it’s a date,” he agreed, pulling out his phone. “I’m putting it in my calendar.”

“A-a date?!”


	2. Chapter 2

“Norman! I-I almost… can’t believe you’re real and not like some kind of… sentient computer program or a vampire or whatever,” Dipper babbled, half- jokingly, one fourth pretending to be joking, and the last fourth sincerely meaning everything that came out of his mouth. “…Well, I guess you could still be a vampire. But you coulda told me, man! I mean, I don’t judge and I can help you break into blood banks. Trust me, I am really, super great at breaking into places. Like, my Grunkle Stan always said Mabel was better but–”

“Dipper. We’re outside. During the day. I’m probably not a vampire,” Norman laughed, then paused. “I mean I guess I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a little vampire in the Prenderghast line…”

“Whoa, for real?” Dipper’s eyes widened and he moved closer to Norman. 

“I-I don’t actually… know for sure, but we’ve got mediums, witches, phone psychics–” Norman counted off on his fingers as he spoke, shifting away from Dipper to get some space. Had this guy ever heard of personal space?

“Wait-wait, stop there. You never told me you had phone psychics in your family? My great grandma was one!” Dipper was practically vibrating as he pulled out a small notebook from his jacket pocket. A pen materialized from somewhere behind his ear and he started jotting down notes. 

“Seriously?” Norman breathed. Dipper hadn’t mentioned anything to suggest he had any magic in his blood. It wouldn’t be too surprising, but he was a little shocked that it had never come up before. 

“Yeah, but she was an old scammer just like Grunkle Stan,” Dipper wrinkled his nose. He’d met her once, when he’d traveled in time and she was every bit as gruff as her son. He remembered her loud voice, the endless circles she’d talk her clients through. 

“Oh.” Norman stepped out of the weird huddle they were in, looking over at his parents and Neil in the car, all waiting for him to say goodbye. “Hey, I gotta, uh, talk to my folks a second, is that okay?”

“Sure, man,” Dipper said, voice going quiet at the end. He stared at the ground as Norman walked off. What if they wouldn’t get along in real life?

“Are you gonna touch his face?” Neil yelled out the car window. 

Dipper’s head snapped up at the shout and Neil laughed. 

“Oh, shut up, Neil,” Norman groaned, reaching into the car to bump his fist against his friend’s. 

“You weren’t saying that in the car,” Neil giggled. He shook his head and produced a series of whale squeals, then continued talking in a high-pitched voice, “’Oh, Neil, I can’t wait to meet Dipper. Oh, Neil, he’s so cute and he likes zombies and ghosts.’”

Norman looked over his shoulder to see Dipper covering his face with his hands. Which made everything much funnier. 

“Oh my god, Neil. What was that even supposed to be?” Norman collapsed against the car door, laughing. 

“Umm, obviously I was channeling your spirit,” Neil answered plainly. 

“Norman, honey, we’re leaving soon. Come to my window and give me a kiss.”

“Alright, mom,” Norman fake-sighed, rolling his eyes. He took three steps forward to the passenger seat door and stuck his head through the open window. 

“See ya, sweetie.” She grabbed his face and gave him a sloppy mom-kiss on the cheek. “Now, you said you’d bring grandma with you, but your father and I want her over for her birthday, okay?”

“Okay, mom,” Norman agreed, kissing his mom on the cheek and walking around the car to give his dad a high-five. 

“Bye, Norm,” his dad said with a smile. “We’re really proud of you.” 

“Thanks.” 

Norman grinned as he watched them go, waving even when he knew they couldn’t see. 

“You know grandmas aren’t on the college packing checklist. You might have to check her in with the RA,” Dipper joked as he moved to stand next to him. His head swiveled around as he surveyed the area. He frowned, suddenly feeling nervous. “Is she here?”

“Yeah, it’s-it’s okay if you can’t see her, Dipper,” Norman sighed.

“B-but I can see the ghosts in Gravity Falls and I–” 

“Maybe that’s just the way things are there.” He laid a hand on Dipper’s shoulder and squeezed. It was weird to think that was the first time he’d ever had physical contact with his long-time friend. 

“I guess,” Dipper conceded, eyes nervously searching Norman. He didn’t look mad at him or upset that he couldn’t see her. 

“Let’s… uh. You wanna help me get the rest of my stuff in?” 

“Sure, dude,” Dipper feigned nonchalance, shrugging Norman’s hand off his shoulder. 

Dipper tried not to get distracted as a nervous energy flooded his system. He picked up Norman’s suitcase and suitcase-waddled his way to the front door of his hall. 

Norman unlocked the hall door with his student id and the coolness of the air conditioning pushed at their sweaty skin. 

Something flashed into Dipper’s head as he saw the map of the part of the city they were in, with the river cutting through it. 

“Do you really think there’s a kappa in the Charles?” he asked, dragging the suitcase across the floor. He got caught on the doormat and slipped a bit. Luckily, he didn’t fall over.

“Oh, we are _so_ going to find out!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still dying because I didn't notice that this ends almost exactly the same way as the first one I wrote. 
> 
> Ps: I'm Aromantic and don't understand romance so bear with me, folks.

**Author's Note:**

> I'll be posting a couple inter-related oneshots. If you want to see more- just ask? I don't have a story planned or anything but I wouldn't mind writing a couple more of these.


End file.
